The EasyShare 5300 marks Kodak's bold entry into the inkjet printer space. Their first printers, all of which are all-in-ones, look fairly generic from the outside. Where Kodak is trying to be different from the other guys is in terms of value. Inkjet printer manufacturers are famous for giving you the printer for cheap and then making you pay through the nose for ink. Kodak's charging a fairly reasonable price for the printer ($199 in the case of the EasyShare 5300) and they're selling the ink for much less than everyone else ($10 for B&W, $15 for color). That's not for a half-filed cartridge either -- it's a full tank. All told, it can cost as little as 10 cents to print a photo on the EasyShare 5300, compared to 24 - 28 cents on other printers.
The 5300 can print, scan, and work as a standalone copier. It's a little light on office needs, with only a 100-sheet paper capacity and lacking both fax support and an automatic document feeder (ADF) for scanning. But it has an assortment of photo-centric features, including the ability to print from a camera, memory card, or USB key; a 3-inch LCD for previewing photos before printing; and a dedicated 4-by-6 photo paper tray. Taken together, the combination is most appropriate for the home or for twin roles in home or light-duty office use.
The EasyShare 5300 is slightly bulky, weighing 21 pounds, but setting it up is a breeze. The two-cartridge ink system certainly makes ink installation easy. When I’ve tested other printers with two-cartridge ink systems, I usually needed to swap out the standard color cartridge with a photo-color cartridge whenever I wanted to print photos. Kodak’s color cartridge contains five inks (cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and a protective coating for photos), so it relieves you of the hassle of cartridge swapping. After you insert the cartridges, perform a quick scanner alignment procedure, and install the MFP’s drivers, the EasyShare 5300 is ready to print, scan, and copy. The EasyShare 5300’s scanner is also quite good. Interestingly, Kodak representatives declined to disclose the optical scan resolution of the EasyShare 5300. In any case, when scanning a color photo at 600 dpi, colors reproduced accurately, and the image overall was rich in detail, earning a Very Good rating. In our 1,200-dpi scan of a line chart to test the scanner’s resolution, the results were impressive, except for a few irregularities found in extremely fine lines. This earned the scanner’s clarity a Very Good rating.
The Kodak EasyShare 5300’s impressive performance in printing, scanning, and copying adds up to a solid all-around device, and the low cost to refill it with ink adds extra value. Despite the flaws I found in its scanner software, the EasyShare 5300 is an impressive MFP that represents a strong start for Kodak in the consumer ink-jet printer market.More Info at kodakordernow.com .
The 5300 can print, scan, and work as a standalone copier. It's a little light on office needs, with only a 100-sheet paper capacity and lacking both fax support and an automatic document feeder (ADF) for scanning. But it has an assortment of photo-centric features, including the ability to print from a camera, memory card, or USB key; a 3-inch LCD for previewing photos before printing; and a dedicated 4-by-6 photo paper tray. Taken together, the combination is most appropriate for the home or for twin roles in home or light-duty office use.
The EasyShare 5300 is slightly bulky, weighing 21 pounds, but setting it up is a breeze. The two-cartridge ink system certainly makes ink installation easy. When I’ve tested other printers with two-cartridge ink systems, I usually needed to swap out the standard color cartridge with a photo-color cartridge whenever I wanted to print photos. Kodak’s color cartridge contains five inks (cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and a protective coating for photos), so it relieves you of the hassle of cartridge swapping. After you insert the cartridges, perform a quick scanner alignment procedure, and install the MFP’s drivers, the EasyShare 5300 is ready to print, scan, and copy. The EasyShare 5300’s scanner is also quite good. Interestingly, Kodak representatives declined to disclose the optical scan resolution of the EasyShare 5300. In any case, when scanning a color photo at 600 dpi, colors reproduced accurately, and the image overall was rich in detail, earning a Very Good rating. In our 1,200-dpi scan of a line chart to test the scanner’s resolution, the results were impressive, except for a few irregularities found in extremely fine lines. This earned the scanner’s clarity a Very Good rating.
The Kodak EasyShare 5300’s impressive performance in printing, scanning, and copying adds up to a solid all-around device, and the low cost to refill it with ink adds extra value. Despite the flaws I found in its scanner software, the EasyShare 5300 is an impressive MFP that represents a strong start for Kodak in the consumer ink-jet printer market.More Info at kodakordernow.com .
